


The Sprinter

by chubbychoco



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Monsters, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-18 22:41:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11884359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chubbychoco/pseuds/chubbychoco
Summary: The Entity has an endgame, but none of them knew just how awful it would be until the first of them fell.





	The Sprinter

**Author's Note:**

> So, I have headcanons for what the original four survivors will become when they go the way of dear Benedict. I've got fanart knocking around too, if people become interested enough.

Jake noticed it first.  
  
The light was gone from Meg's eyes. There was nothing left, no spark, no determination.  
  
That was frightening enough; everyone had read Benedict's journal. They knew what happened when survivors were finally drained of hope. As such, the group redoubled their efforts to keep her with them, joking and nudging and talking to her near-constantly unless one of their many hunters was nearby. But Meg's smiles were pasted on, and her mirth had the empty echo of a gutted theater.  
  
What they _really_ didn't like, though, was the sudden appearance of a torn piece of paper. An innocuous enough item, but things didn't just _appear_ in these places. Everything had a purpose. Jake brought it to Dwight, who examined it carefully before concluding that it looked like a calculus worksheet. The name on the top was missing, just barely torn free.  
  
But only one of them was a college student who was losing faith.  
  
“Hey, Meg,” Dwight ventured, heading over to her at the campfire and holding out the paper. “Is this your handwriting?”  
  
Meg made no move to take the paper, and scanned over it with emotionless eyes. “Yeah,” she said flatly.  
  
“Oh.” He swallowed hard, licking his lips nervously. “Any idea why it would be in a chest in the asylum?”  
  
“No.”  
  
Meg went back to staring into the fire.  
  
Once the rest of them were asleep, Dwight held the paper in the campfire, heart pounding with ugly anticipation. Like his hand, it did not burn. He let out a massive sigh of relief, flopping back against a nearby tree. There was still time.  
  
Not much time.  
  
But maybe they could get through to her.

 

* * *

  
  
“Run, run! Fucking run!!” Dwight screamed, tearing towards the door as fast as he could. Blood streamed down his face, the loss of which staggered him. But he was so close. He'd be damned if he slowed down now; everyone ended up back at the campfire in the end, but being taken by the Entity wasn't something you willingly submitted yourself to. Time lost all meaning in that blood-red void, and the world was nothing but teeth and agony and the reaching, spidery legs of a creature with no emotions.  
  
He could hear the Wraith's bell chime behind him, hear its unsteady breathing as it drew closer. Tears streamed down his face as he sprinted towards the open doors, where Meg stood waiting for him.  
  
“Meg, _go!_ Go, run, I'll be fine!” he wailed, flinging one arm to indicate she move. Meg did not move. She stood and stared, watching him stumble his way to the door. The Wraith swung, narrowly missing him only because he nearly collapsed under his own exhaustion, causing his body to move unpredictably.  
  
Once Dwight made it past the first set of columns behind the door, he was home free. The Wraith knew it too, and stopped two feet away from Meg. It turned its attention quickly to her, eyes glowing brightly at the sight of new flesh.  
  
It was borderline suicidal, but Dwight actually turned to drag her with him.  
  
But Meg didn't need the help. The Wraith had its axe pressed into her chest, blood dribbling down her front, but she didn't move. She stood there, staring into its eyes, as if waiting for more.  
  
No, not waiting.  
  
 _Daring._  
  
She was _daring_ it to take her to the hooks.  
  
Dwight couldn't stay and watch further. The Wraith seemed to realize he wasn't past the Entity's barrier yet, and took a long, loping step towards him. He finished fleeing, and as it always did, the world fell away in fog. He couldn't see the wrecker's yard any more, or anyone inside of it.  
  
And although he could still hear them, he wasn't sure he wanted to.

 

* * *

  
  
Meg began vanishing.  
  
She would be at the campfire, the same as the rest of them. But then, either on their way to their newest arena or shortly after they arrived inside of it, Meg would simply disappear. None of them knew where to, but the doors and the trapdoor would still be locked...and yet the Entity would allow them passage even though only three of them had escaped. Meg, it seemed, no longer counted for the purpose of its sadistic games.  
  
Questioning her as to where she went accomplished nothing. If they were lucky, they got a one-word answer out of her. More complex questions that required thorough explanations went completely ignored.  
  
And then one day, they arrived back to find a new face in Meg's place. A rough woman, hardened by time on the streets. She introduced herself as Nea, then demanded to know why they were all staring and where the hell was she anyway?  
  
Jake didn't answer her. He moved over to the rotting chest where they stored everything they salvaged from their ordeals and rooted around until he found the torn math paper. The others had been trying to tell Nea what was going on, but they fell silent as they watched Jake head to the fire and hold it out. The paper caught with a predictable lick of orange, then dissolved in a cloud of inky black.  
  
The offering was accepted.  
  
Claudette buried her face in her hands and started sobbing.

 

* * *

  
  
None of them talked about what it meant when the Entity took them to a college track field.  
  
They didn't have to. Everyone except Nea knew, and she would learn soon enough.  
  
Everyone tried a little harder than usual not to meet their killer _du jour_. The moment they got that tingling horror creeping up their spine they fled, hiding in lockers or practically burying themselves in the decorative hedges at the edge of the schoolyard. Dwight and Jake shared a miserable look as they pressed up against a wall, listening as deep, measured breaths passed by them on the other side. They weren't the unsteady shards of ugly air yanked in and hacked out by the other killers. They were precise, controlled, calm.  
  
The breaths of a runner.  
  
It was Nea who first encountered her – everything had been explained, of course, but she either didn't fully grasp the situation, or maybe she thought they were just messing with her. Either way, she walked loudly, worked clumsily on the generators, and was slow to clear out after a loud noise.  
  
Taller in death than she was in life, Meg was unrecognizable as the human she used to be. Her legs beneath her track pants were bent and malformed, like those of a beast, and her calloused feet now carried her digitigrade. Her shoulders were drawn back, pushing out an ill-clothed chest with cracked, exposed ribs. Every breath in caused the shiny pink of her bared lungs to inflate in a manner that would have been cartoonish and comical were it not so terrifying. On her face was a white, wooden mask that seemed to have been fashioned out of the sidelines' white picket fence, but the bottom had broken away, exposing an open, panting mouth filled with needle-sharp teeth. How she navigated with her eyes obscured was a mystery, but what wasn't was the purpose of the old, splintered end of a field javelin in her hand. She flipped it effortlessly and strode towards Nea.  
  
Nea's knees went weak, forcing her to the ground, and she scrambled back with horrified screaming. “What is it?! _Gud i himlen, vad är det?!_ ” she wailed, looking frantically around for help.  
  
Dwight watched bitterly from the shadows as the creature that used to be Meg slashed at Nea with the rusted iron, not about to risk being hung up on a hook right after her. He had fireworks in his pocket and far more experience than he'd have wished on his worst enemy; he could rescue her. But he'd been there himself too many times before.  
  
So had Meg...one time too many, now. And for the first time, they all saw in person what the Entity's endgame was. The before and after was harrowing. As he and Claudette ushered a bleeding, sobbing Nea through the doors and back towards the campfire almost a half-hour later, they shared a silent look over her beanie...  
  
...both wondering what they would become when their time came.

 


End file.
